How do you create meaningful relationships with your audiences through marketing? As the agency of relationships, Lunne focuses on helping clients leverage marketing to communicate who their brand is and why it stands out from competitors. Yet, as true marketers know, it’s much more than beautiful creative or another email campaign: it’s about creating and sustaining excellent relationships with their audiences.
After two decades of B2B marketing, I’ve learned that the audience (associates, vendors, customers, patients, etc.) owes us nothing. Not clicks. Not time. Not trust. Not loyalty. Loud, clickbait, aggressive marketing may get you short-term results, but it won’t produce what we’re all after and what really matters: a steadfast audience that chooses you again and again—and again.
A sustained audience relationship is not accidental. It is earned—and nurtured—by meeting what I have found are four fundamental relationship requirements.
Consider these key relationship requirements: Trust, Knowledge + Insights, Attention, Cadence.
Let’s break down how to get them right.
1. Trust: The cost of entry
What it is: Trust is fundamental to any connection. We know you cannot build a house on sand, and you cannot create any relationship without trust. Trust is the belief that you are honest, credible, and acting in your audience’s best interests.
Why it matters: Trust, of course, takes time and requires a history of creating safe spaces—over and over again. A B2B buyer (or a highly sensitive field such as health or finance) often operates in high-risk environments. Every decision may affect revenue, people’s careers, and, of course, the company’s reputation. When stakeholders trust your organization (and the people within it), your audience can set aside skepticism and lean in to hear your messages and ideas. (This is especially true internally.)
What you’re getting wrong: I’ve seen the common mistake of replacing trustworthiness with perfection. Sure, an expensive design, bold brand messaging, or beautiful trifolds may be attractive, but an overpolished asset won’t earn trust. Acknowledge and correct missteps, celebrate nuance, and be genuine with your audience. They aren’t looking for perfect.
Here’s how to apply it:
2. Knowledge + Insights: The reason they stay
What it is: There’s definite nuance here. Knowledge is information, but insight is the ability to anticipate your audience’s needs (even before they know them). Both are important.
I think of this requirement when getting to know someone. To know someone means you know their food and drink preferences and what makes them tick. To have insight means they will (or won’t) be into the new hibachi grill restaurant, especially if they have to sit at a communal table with a bunch of strangers.
Why it matters: True friends spend a lifetime gathering overt and covert facts about each other. This knowledge and these insights help create powerful bonds that stand the test of time. While it’s both an art (insight) and a science (knowledge), remembering these details and preferences makes each of us feel heard and more special. Your audience (or friend) doesn’t need more content about your brand; they need you to have the knowledge and insight into their problems so you can seamlessly offer better solutions.
What you’re getting wrong: Quantity over quality. Don’t publish more content just to check off a vanity KPI. Your audience will scroll right through it anyway. And stop talking about yourself, your organization, your shiny win, and start connecting to your audience’s reality. Ask yourself, "What is happening in their daily lives, and where do we fit into it?"
Here’s how to apply it:
3. Attention: The scarce(st?) resource
What it is: Your audience’s willingness to allow you into their mental space. You may get their attention (short-term results), but I’ve noticed you can no longer really capture or hold it (long-term results); they must grant it to you.
Why it matters: Without attention, will you ever have the chance to build trust and develop insights? Probably not. Attention is the ticket to get them into your show. But it’s fragile. Your customer is constantly reassessing if you’re worth granting attention.
What you’re getting wrong: Did your social campaign have good reach? It may not mean you’re holding their attention. One of the most significant errors I’ve seen in the last 40+ years, primarily through this digital and now AI-driven landscape, is thinking that attention is something to extract rather than earn. It’s not. Urgent or clickbait energy won’t make your brand memorable for the right reasons—or sometimes at all.
Here’s how to apply it:
4. Cadence: The song and dance of trust
What it is: Timing is everything, as we’re often reminded, and it’s true here too. Cadence is the rhythm of when (and where) you show up for your audience right when they need you. It’s predictable, sustainable, and consistent.
Why it matters: If you’ve ever been ghosted by a date, friend, or vendor, you know that trust is immediately eroded. When your customer begins to form expectations around your brand’s habits and rhythms, you’d better follow through and continue to deliver on your promises—and on time. Cadence signals your brand is committed to them.
What you’re getting wrong: You went full steam ahead on one campaign; it failed, so you just pivoted to silence. Do not do this. Don’t launch in bursts and then leave your audience to fill in the blanks for you. It’s more important to take an entire step back and plan for consistency rather than put energy into short-term intensity. You’re running the marathon, not the sprint.
Here’s how to apply it:
The real goal of B2B marketing
These four requirements—trust, insights, attention, and cadence—do not operate independently. They compound and reinforce one another.
Trust increases attention. Insights deepen trust. Cadence sustains trust and attention. You get the idea.
These requirements, or reminders, to meaningful relationships will help your marketing behave like a relationship and stop feeling transactional. If your 2026 marketing goals are to reach real people, solve real problems, and offer real solutions, we can help you achieve them. Like any good start to a new friendship, we’re willing to listen and establish a new, trusting connection with more people like you. Let’s build the kind of marketing that elevates your brand—and your customers.
Cheers to 2026!
-Doug Lunne, Founder + President